No abstract

Background: Governments around the world have imposed varied containment measures to curb the spread of the COVID-19 infection. The psychological impact could be highly negative in patients with neurologic condition like Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Methods: We prospectively evaluated symptoms of depression and anxiety in 50 (26 females ; mean age at 60.4) non demented Moroccan PD patients, using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), at the beginning and after 6 weeks of a full confinement. Results: At the first evaluation, 28% of patients had depression while 32% had anxiety. After 6 weeks of confinement, some patients got worse and others got better scores but no significant statistical difference for both troubles was seen. Conclusion: Our results show that there is no significant impact of 6 weeks of confinement on overall anxiety and depression scores. However, confinement could have an unexpected positive psychological impact on a significant number of PD patients.

Myoclonus-dystonia (M-D) is an autosomal-dominant movement disorder with onset in the first two decades of life. Mutations in the epsilon-sarcoglycan gene (SGCE, DYT11) on chromosome 7q21-q31 represent the major genetic cause of M-D in some populations. The syndrome was related with mutations in two other genes (DRD2 and DYT1). A second locus has been reported in one large M-D family (DYT15, 18p11), but no gene has been identified yet. In this review, we discuss genetic aspects of myoclonus-dystonia.